Independent British travel management company Hillgate Travel has launched a cloud-based pre-trip and post-trip management information tool that it developed in-house. MiWay Analytics consists of graphically based dashboards, although users can drill down through the visuals to reach the raw data set for individual travelers.
Sales and marketing director Warren Dix claimed customers can use a suite of standard reports but also create their own dashboards with as few as three clicks. Data also can be exported to a variety of formats, such as Microsoft Excel. Reporting can be selected in any of seven currencies, with the exchange rate tied to date of invoice as opposed to when the report is generated.
Dix said the intention of MiWay is to enable better decision-making. For example, “you can see how many changes travelers make before they make a booking, so that whether it’s one change or 10, you can decide if it is worth having flexible tickets.”
Hillgate is offering MiWay free to clients. “We were talking about how to stand out from the marketplace,” said Dix. “We don’t charge for the data, yet it’s better than what other people are paying for.”
MiWay was developed in close consultation with four Hillgate clients. Subsequent releases will be quarterly. Dix said the next release would include a tool for tracking spend against budget and an industry benchmarking capability.
In 2014, Hillgate launched an application using adapted Sabre Red Workspace technology under a license that allows its agents to book from a global distribution system integrated with online content.